A settlement that allows the East Bay Regional Park District to continue planning and designing a 300-space parking lot near a popular entrance to Mission Peak Regional Preserve has been reached with park residents who have fought the lot out of fear it’ll draw hordes of visitors to their neighborhood.

Under terms of the settlement, agreed to last month, the district in exchange will try to steer park visitors away from the Stanford Avenue entrance where the lot is to be built, and toward the less popular trailhead access near Ohlone College, about 1.6 miles north on Mission Boulevard, according to park district spokeswoman Carol Johnson

Among other things, the district agreed to put signs on Mission Boulevard directing visitors from Highway 680 to the Ohlone parking structure, put signs on Pine Street to direct visitors from the Ohlone parking structure to the Ohlone trailhead, install a water fountain at the Ohlone trail entrance (it’s already been completed), and post on the district’s website a suggestion that visitors take BART and use ride sharing services to reach the popular park

The settlement culminates almost two years of delays since the district board approved a new, larger parking lot in September 2016 to accommodate the influx of visitors there, especially on weekends.

While the settlement is a milestone, park district officials say full funding for construction and upcoming lease agreement renewals with the city of Fremont still need to be worked out before the lot can be built.

The district previously expected the new lot to be ready by 2020, but that’s now uncertain, Johnson said.

The lawsuit was filed in November 2016 by a group of residents of the Mission Peak neighborhood near the park’s Stanford Avenue trailhead and staging area calling themselves the Coalition to Save Mission Peak.

In its opposition to the lot, the group contended the park district “failed to comply with or violated” multiple statutes of the California Environmental Quality Act.

The lawsuit says district officials failed to fully evaluate potential alternatives to constructing a new parking lot and its location, and failed to adequately identify and address significant impacts on a habitat that sustains a golden eagle population, among other claims.

Neighbors had complained that park visitors ignore curfew hours, make noise and sometimes block their driveways. In response, the city of Fremont and the district created a permit parking program near the Stanford Avenue staging area in November 2016.

The program bars non-resident parking in designated areas of the neighborhood on weekends and major holidays, when park use is heaviest. This news organization reported that in just the first eight months of the permit enforcement, the city of Fremont issued roughly $100,000 worth of tickets.

The Stanford Avenue staging area sees thousands of visitors each weekend, but only has 43 spaces for cars. Parking has been designated for park use in about 150 street spaces where there aren’t homes.

Johnson said the district agreed to halt all planning and design of the new parking lot while the settlement was negotiated and the effects of the permit program evaluated.

“The parking permit has been very helpful to the community, to the neighborhood,” Johnson said.

“It has taken away a lot of the complaints that I know we’ve heard in the past about people showing up at 5 a.m. and being loud and ruckus and leaving garbage, and doing things of that sort,” she said.

“We’re not hearing those complaints anymore in part because park users can’t park in those areas.”

Johnson said the district has also been successful in redirecting more park users to the Ohlone College access point, where they pay a parking fee and take a different trail to the peak, though results are mixed.

While the district’s latest data available shows a 7 percent increase in the number of visitors using the Ohlone access point since 2014, there was an almost 17 percent drop between 2016 and 2017.

Last year, on average, 3,458 people visited the peak via the Ohlone trailhead each month, while 13,783 did so through the Stanford side.

The parking lot, planned for an area just east of the current Stanford Avenue lot at the base of the park, was originally estimated to cost $6.5 million when approved in 2016.

Johnson said the district has raised about $1.5 million for the parking lot so far, mostly from Measure WW funds. With rising construction costs and an incomplete design, Johnson said the total cost of the lot is expected to rise, although she couldn’t provide an estimate.

Joseph Geha is a multimedia journalist covering Fremont, Newark, and Union City for the Bay Area News Group, and is based at The Argus. His prior work has been seen in multiple Bay Area news outlets, including SF Weekly, as well as on KQED and KLIV radio. He is a graduate of California State University, East Bay (Hayward), and is a Fremont native. He is a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan.